


Colligo

by Alias (anafabula)



Category: Cultist Simulator (Video Game)
Genre: Archives Are Not Neutral, Banned Together Bingo 2020, But that’s okay, Censorship, Existentially-challenged library materials, Gen, Hush House (Book of Hours), Probably more Cultist-y in tone than BoH will be, The Suppression Bureau (Cultist Simulator), The Wars of the Roads (Secret Histories), The added challenge of special collections in a cosmic horror multiverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-29
Updated: 2020-06-29
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:40:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24479614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anafabula/pseuds/Alias
Summary: The Suppression Bureau has made an unreasonable demand.This is hardly out of the ordinary. Its subject, however, is.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 13
Collections: Banned Together Bingo 2020





	Colligo

**Author's Note:**

  * For [segfaultvicta](https://archiveofourown.org/users/segfaultvicta/gifts).



> “Oh, I’ll _show_ you `Unflattering War Info`—”
> 
> (Me, writing fanfiction for a game in the series that won’t be out for ages, based on [the screenshot of one pitch](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D_B4VUpW4AAxcAd.jpg:large): _p a r k o u r_ )
> 
> If custom formatting is troublesome to read for you, you can always click the "Hide Creator's Style" button up top!

“Oh, good Lord,” I murmur before actually thinking better of it; though at least I haven’t specified what Lord that may be. (To my knowledge, for one thing, mine would not like to be called that; and the gods of the House can be jealous things.) But it just slips out, staring at the mail, struggling very slightly with the desire to go outside and dash it unopened on the rocks instead. I just spend so _much_ time being careful, and…

No. No, that would be littering. That would be littering and ignoring these letters runs the risk of getting even me arrested, and then who’d deal with the book scorpions if not I? No.

Just because I can’t drop the new and glaringly official letters of request from the Suppression Bureau doesn’t mean I have to drop everything and deal with them. I stuff the truly demeaning bundle in my pockets inelegantly and run both hands through my hair, looking for the calm I lose easily when dealing with them: no, I have _real_ work to do, work _worth_ doing, and they’ll just have to wait.

* * *

A flicker of paranoia runs over the back of my neck as I read. The windchill doesn’t bother me, no, but this does. For a single, guilty moment, I wonder if someone sold me out.

That’s vanishingly unlikely — I _know_ that’s vanishingly unlikely. I’m hardly the only soul the Bureau has eyes on, or even one of the most concerning. (However much I may wish to be insulted by that fact, it _is_ useful.) More likely the traveler who brought me the book under consideration, that’s currently under the attic skylight waiting for the sun and the cold to do their work, is a priority of the Bureau’s. In which case — oh, I hope they’re all right. I can’t intervene from here regardless, but I hope they’re all right.

When I write to the Suppression Bureau in an official capacity, which is the only way I’d be caught dead writing to them in the first place, I take extra precautions. Not just in diplomatic phrasing (though that as well), but in terms of permanence. I write in waterproof ink at bare minimum, I keep a copy for myself of every word I’ve said. It would be much too easy for them to claim damage, otherwise, or ambiguity, the convenient loss of a crucial paragraph or word; it could even be true. Best not risk it.

I’ve been mixing my own inks, for restoration purposes primarily but pleasantly useful here, for the past few months. It mollifies me very slightly that this is one I’ve been looking forward to trying, a shading thing different from every angle, doomed to stay on my fingertips for days if I make one small mistake. (In which case — generally speaking, in my line of work, one doesn’t wear gloves; the loss in dexterity is too severe. Sometimes the tradeoff’s still worth it.) Proof enough against forgery, proof enough against a great many things. (I hope.) Depending on who reads this, might well give them a migraine. I should care more than I do, perhaps.

Perhaps.

* * *

To whom it may concern:

I have received your request that Willis-Ford’s The War of the Roads be surrendered to the Suppression Bureau, and am unilaterally denying it.

As you no doubt know, this is the only uncensored copy currently known to exist in our current universe. I am well aware of the author’s excision from it; I would contend that it has been well and truly suppressed. If anything, the relatively wide circulation of your censored editions serves to dissuade most readers from seeking more. Meanwhile, this copy in our collection is a unique artifact, arguably more than it is useful strictly as a text. I will not allow it to be similarly maimed.

It will not be leaving the library at any time, nor will it be part of the public collection. I am happy to offer that compromise. But independent of the world you aim to live in, the war in question occurred, and it occurred on library grounds. Elsewhere as well, but the rest of the world may well give up that history. Like everything else, here it is written in the rock. To further contest our entitlement to this narrative would be a challenge to the library’s neutrality and its existence. That level of escalation is intolerable to me and a poor outcome for us all.

Similarly, I will not be disclosing where it came to us from. I don’t know its provenance and, in light of your overreach, intend to keep it that way.

You agents may submit any requests to view it and other materials once processed, in a personal capacity, through the normal channels.

The Suppression Bureau is barely over a century old. The government you are part of is younger. You have no claim to being affected by fifteenth-century histories in terms of privileged information, legitimacy, or danger.

I do.

With all due respect,

* * *

Instead of any signature, I set my pen down — I’ll clean it in a second, I _will_ — and drop my head into my hands. Which does, in fact, leave little finger-smears of extremely tenacious ink across my cheek, so it’s just as well that this season’s a slow one for visitors.

There are so many more things I could say. So _many_. I think about what pieces I _do_ know, have recovered, more specifically of how the war came to our doorstep and passed it; I think about the debt I’d owe by nature to the Church of the Unconquered Sun, and my fingers twitch uncomfortably. The sheer stridency of those demands — do they already know something I don’t? Because there are ways enough that even I already know it can’t be said for certain that the Children of the Leashed Flame don’t _not_ exist, and maybe…

Or maybe they’re just greedy, and they’re just selfish, and they’re just shortsighted. Maybe they saw an opportunity — maybe. Maybe.

I think about the fire that brought me here — speaking of _opportunity_ — and set my hands on the table, too carefully, palms open. (They are as smudged as they’d felt.) This is such an unnecessary ordeal they’re putting me through over a piece of un-history that barely qualifies as living. Unless, of course, it’s not unnecessary at all.

It’s certainly not optional, on my side of things. I’m far from the punishing consistency of sheer will I know from brushes with Names, from the odd and soul-shaking glimpse of the work of an Hour, there’s much more and much more mortal to me than that, but this is very black and white. I made a promise. I’d be bound by that promise if I hadn’t taken this job; and then, also, I took this job.

I could offer them passion if they wanted it in terms of justification. I could. I know my feelings on the matter well enough. I could appeal to the uncompromising insight of the Door in the Eye and the quiet eternity promised by the Ivory Dove, the way I do when I’m asking myself if I’m doing the right thing. Given time, I could probably even do it well, convey no small part of why I care and what I admire and how I believe.

At which point I would presumably be arrested, and tried before anyone realized I’d disappeared somewhere much less benign than the stacks. Any appeal to what I find valuable would simply incriminate me. Assuming the recipient of my argument could even read it, which is by no means guaranteed; the Bureau allows its creatures very little.

There are so many more things I could say, and, as the matter stands, I’ve already said too much.

I sigh and I seethe about it one selfish moment longer, and then I wipe that away and set to writing a more palatable second draft.

**Author's Note:**

> Personally, I was picturing something like [this but archival](https://www.mountainofink.com/blog/ink-review-organics-studio-walden) for the ink, because "the super-extra inks are archival" is just forever wish-fulfillment for me.
> 
> This is, shamelessly, a “since Seg says such lovely things about my Cultsim fic” gift; I really like comments, and have a lot of library- and archive-related feelings.
> 
> (Speaking of, I'm going to continue contending that Lantern + Winter + Secret Histories are the principles most appropriate to archivists as a profession overall for the foreseeable.)


End file.
